Inexperienced Public Service Commission

Thursday, March 18, 2010

If the Public Service Commission had had a tad more experience, it might have just sent Mrs June Spence-Jarrett home on early retirement, instead of transferring whatever shortcomings it feared in her to another place.

Wherever she is reassigned, it is very likely that she will start out under a dark cloud and that staff under her will question her skills set. Mrs Spence-Jarrett herself might begin to feel 'cute' in such circumstances. After all, to be tagged with the dreadful Armadale fire deaths, for allegedly putting 23 girls in space for five, is not a badge that one can wear proudly.

The same could be said of Major Richard Reese who was transferred from the National Security Ministry over the Armadale tragedy, because he was head of the Correctional Services Department and boss of Mrs Spence-Jarrett at the time of the decision to send the hapless girls to the place of their eventual demise.

And yet there is a bigger point to be made in this issue about how does a Government treat with public servants who appear to have fallen down on their job. Because it's an ill wind that blows no good, if public servants begin to feel that they risk getting the short end of the stick when things do not work in the public sector.

Schoolchildren in Mocho know that in the best of times, Jamaican public servants are caught between a rock and a hard place. It is called the perils of underdevelopment.

In the case of Armadale, we start out with problems that usually have their origins in the poverty and squalor of many homes, from which the State must try to protect our children, by removing them to a place of safety. But there are never enough resources to provide an adequate number of quality places.

Too often, the staff in these woefully under-resourced State homes have to dig into their own pockets, from their meagre earnings to help out, because they have got attached to the wards of those homes and hate to see them deprived.

These same staff are too frequently given basket to carry water. And when the service eventually breaks down, they must turn around and face the blame.

We are not perforce arguing that this is the situation in which Mrs Spence-Jarrett finds herself. For if the respected Armadale Enquirer, Justice Paul Harrison is correct, she is "uncaring and inhumane" and he also found her "evasive and less than truthful" when she testified before the Commission.

What we are trying to work through is the necessity for policy development, at the Government level, that ensures that when blame is to be ascribed, it is done without destroying the integrity of a public servant who may well have been given that proverbial basket to carry water.

It is not too late to spare the public service and Mrs Spence-Jarrett the agony that keeping her on is bound to engender.

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COMMENTS (4)

george watson
3/24/2010

In any developed country it would have been the government which took the flak for Armadale, even if some other people got hurt somewhere along the line. The buck should have stopped with the Minister. As a matter of fact that would have been the case in the previous administration. . Not that anybody in that government would have resigned either, but the blame would have been cast squarely on their shoulders. I can just hear the Thinker now.
This administration takes responsibility for nothing, but praise for everything. But as usual the JLP has always had this ability of discrediting people and drawing their names through the mud. If anyone wants to challenge me on here about this, I can call names and names and names.
It behooves the present Acting Commissioner of Corrections to take note and take sleep and mark death. As a matter of fact this is timely warning for anybody who works in government and wants to protect their good names. When they want to get rid of you they will fabricate anything.
As I advised the acting commissioner on here yesterday, Document everything and don’t take any meaningful direction by word of mouth.
We can see what is happening to Mr. Brady at the present time and look how close he is to them.

T G
3/18/2010

The Editorial is arguing that:
1. The Public Service Commission is no good
2. The Government don't know what to do will failed/failing Public Servants.
3. Bad homes is start of all this.
4. The officials are given the proverbial basket to carry water.
Well if all the above is correct, then it all adds to shared responsibility. Based on that I think the Board made the best decision in both cases.
The Government cannot fire Board appointed Civil Servants and the PC realize that many are not going to get the tools they need to do the work anyway. So there is no reason to bax food outta dem mout, especially if they have skills that can be utilized in other areas.
Of course I still think that in other Jurisdictions they would be lucky to escape criminal and/or civil action(s) against them and the services/institutions they headed.
....TG....

norris Richards
3/18/2010

The JLP IS not moving out failed bureaucrats out of the government, but continued to shuffle them throughout the other government departments, this will not change the dismal services the government is providing for its citizens.

JA Cynic
3/18/2010

Why is it that when found negligent in doing their officail duties, they seem to always end up at the OPM?
Is the OPM the new "never- never " land for the public service?
If the trend continues for much longer, it will clog the work of the OPM. The PM is in clear & present danger of being " contaminated" by that work environment.
JA Cynic

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Inexperienced Public Service Commission